Jason Draper - 2709 Reviews

If you ask any of the three Thirsty Dudes, strawberries are awesome. If you inquire again with the same three dudes they will tell you that bananas are garbage. It's really weird the first time you approach them, no matter what you ask they reply about strawberries, the second about bananas. Someone could ask, “Do you know what time it is?” and they would be told, “Strawberries are awesome.” Science has finally broken their brains. So much in fact they have started writing in the third person.

This drink is supposed to taste like strawberry banana, but in reality tastes more like an apple drink with a bit of banana flavoring in it, and even less strawberry. I was able to drink more of it than any other banana-based drink I've ever tried, but it still wasn't great. It was also lightly carbonated, even though sparkling water is not listed in the ingredients or anywhere on the can. I found that odd.

In the end this was a bit better than I expected, but I still found it not very appealing. If it had a real banana flavor I would have given it higher marks for all you savages out there who like that garbage fruit, but as it stands I just can't do it.

Captain, we have a problem. We're about to set voyage and we just realized that we only have enough beverages on this ship to last us until tomorrow. I don't know who messed up, but we'll find out and they will be scrubbing the galley in no time.

Sailor, first things first; I am an admiral, not a lowly captain. I control entire fleets of ships, and I eat captains with my morning granola. That's right, cannibalism is okay because I am an admiral. It will do you well not to forget that in the future. As for our little problem, don't sweat it ensign. Being an admiral and all I have the inside line to many things that you lower sailors do not. One of them happens to be a line of teas created for my kind. That's also right; us admirals like to think of ourselves as a different race. We are descended from mermen, but you didn't hear that from me. I can get us as many cases of tea as we'll need for this voyage by 0900 tomorrow.

Have you ever had Arizona and Peace Tea before ensign? Well, tea made for admirals falls somewhere between the two. It tastes more like Razzleberry Peace Tea, but it is sweetened with HFCS, so it has more of the consistency of Arizona. You might ask why they don't use a higher grade of sweetener for the master sea race. The fact of the matter is that our kind really just likes the thickness of corn syrup. It makes us feel like a drink has more substance. Call us crazy, but that is how my kind has always felt and always will feel.

Now let's get these people down to Cozumel. They paid decent money for this cruise and we're going to show them the best time we possibly can!

Wisconsin is a land of wonder. For some reason that state will always be a little slice of heaven for me, well besides the craphole that is Milwaukee. How can the rest of a state be so serene and magical and then it is mostly known for such a pile of filth. In the few times I have visited that city I've had a run in with suburban punk kids who thought they were nazis, watched a drug deal gone wrong and violence ensued, watched knives get pulled on people and various other activities perpetrated by degenerics. Then there are towns like Appleton that are filled with joy, wonder and amazing people. I got my highest score ever in Galaga at a Laundromat in Appleton. That is enough for me to love it forever.

I've been to many towns large and small in that incredible state, yet I have never visited Janesville, the home of Gray's Brewing Company. It is another beer brewery that also puts out a line of sodas. If I've learned anything through my years at Thirsty Dudes it's that you should pay attention when a brewery starts making some root beer. It's usually something special. Gray's knows that root beer should be stored in brown bottles; none of that clear garbage.

The root beer has a heavy wintergreen and licorice flavor to it. It's a classic root beer taste that is better than the pops “big soda” puts out. That is a hysterical idea: big soda. Seriously though, the way this tastes is what I think of when I think of root beer. It's not complex and there is nothing that particularly stands out about it, but it's solid and that's all you can really ask for.

Now Wisconsin, you should really think about kicking Milwaukee out of your state. Maybe IL would take them?

Welcome back to another episode of “Board Room Shenanigans.” As always we are brought to you by the three lovely fellows at Thirsty Dudes. This series helps to fill in the gaps as to why certain drinks taste like they do. Sometimes you have to wonder how some drinks make it onto the shelves. Here at the show we like to think we shed some light on the subject. Now onto today's episode…€¦.

Gentlemen, the world of energy drinks is shifting and I will not see our empire crumble because we did not get with the times. Consumers are demanding more than just candy flavored sparkling drinks that will keep them up all night. As our competitors have proven the clients want real flavors and new styles. I thought we would be alright since we put that relaxation drink on the market, but people still want new energy drinks. What are everyone's ideas? Juice infused with whatever it is that gives our drinks energy? Well first off, as a member of this board you really should know what those ingredients are. We don't need a scandal on our hands. Secondly, do you think I want to hemorrhage money? Do you know how much fruit juice costs in comparison to the sugar water we put out now? There's no way we could do that and keep our profits high. Energy shots? Those are so last year. Energized iced tea? I think you may be onto something! That's something new and tea can be the cheapest thing ever. Let's take it up a notch though, so people think they are getting a little extra for their money. Let's make it peach iced tea.

In order to keep costs low we're going to need to use the ghettoest tea ever. You know those gallons of tea you can find in gas stations for 99 cents that are more sugar water than tea? Well, we need to use something like that, but make it even more peach flavored sugar water and less tea. We'll mix all of that up with our patented energy mix, which off the record I think tastes like toxic waste and we have a new product on our hands that the kids will eat up. Non-carbonated energy drinks are going to be the wave of the future and we're going to be riding the crest. Who cares if our product will taste like garbage? It's so new that people will eat it up and by the time they realize just how gross it is, we'll be sold out and have a new product on the market.

The quantity of almonds I have consumed in my life is fairly astronomical. I went through a period where I ate 3-5 pounds a week. I feel like I shouldn't be alive after that. It just seems like so many almonds. I t probably helps my state of living that I only ate raw unsalted ones. Now that I think of it, I probably could have doubled my intake and still been fine. I also have unsweetened almond milk on my cereal every morning. My point is, I know almonds. A lot of things that claim to be almond flavored don't really taste like the nuts at all. I can assure you readers that Victoria's Kitchen also knows almonds. As soon as you open this bottle it smells like almond concentrate. That was a bit frightening because I was afraid this might actually be as strong as almond extract, which would be absolute hell on ones taste buds. Before I took a sip I had decided that this was either going to taste like an extreme almond extract, or it was going to taste like watered down almond milk. Neither of those options particularly interested me, so luckily I was wrong. It tastes like you took a glass 99% full of water and mixed in that last 1% with almond extract, well we should probably lower those percents in the same ratio so this hypothetical mixture doesn't spill out of the nonexistent glass. I like it. It tastes exactly like almonds, but the sugar in it is a bit of a turn off. It's pretty sweet and it gives it a bit of a candied taste. As a result I couldn't drink more than half the bottle in one sitting, but I was happy to go back to it later. I think Vicky and her kitchen staff could have gone with perhaps 1/3 of the sugar they used and I would have liked it a lot more, but hey I like my almonds really plain. Now go get a rag, we have to wipe up all this ghost almond drink you spilled all over your counter.

I'm a self-proclaimed outdoor kid. Hiking around the woods is one of my favorite things to do. With that being said, as I get older I find myself making it out into the great outdoors a lot less than I used to. This has left me feeling like a slob. I work then I hang out the house or go to band practice. As a result a few months ago I joined a gym. Well because of that and because the amount of sugar I intake is fairly astronomical due to this website. I'm shocked that I have actually kept going, and I find myself more or less enjoying it. I have a routine of when I go, and I stick to it. Even over the past week when it's been 95+ degrees and I sweat just sitting still.

Today was one of my gym days and I was already sweating like crazy as I climbed out of the basement furnace that is my screen printing shop. I dried off as much as I could and then headed to work out. I feel sorry for the other patrons of the gym. Sure I follow the rules and wipe off the machines when I'm done, I'm not a savage, but while I was on the treadmill sweat was literally pouring off of me. When I was done there was a physical pool of sweat on the floor beneath me. Embarrassed, I cleaned it up and then went to do some lifting. I try not to look at anyone else while I'm there, so I don't know if anyone was in the same boat as me, but I can only assume they were and I hope they paid me the same courtesy as I did them by ignoring my existence.

By the time I got back home I was completely drenched with sweat and dehydrated. I decided I should give this bottle of Cytomax recorvery drink a try. I figured there would never be a better time. It's a protein drink, so I expected it to be thick. It's also watermelon flavored so I expected it to be gross. What I didn't expect was for it to taste like it does, and that is like a generic Pixie Stix. To be more specific it tastes like someone took a watermelon Jolly Rancher and crushed it to powder. Then for every part powder they mixed in three parts Pixie Stix. Shockingly it's not disgusting, but it is insanely sweet, in the artificial sweetener kind of way.

I don't really know if it helped with recovery, but it did quench my thirst, and I strangely enjoyed it. So at least it's got that going for it.

I have a couple of questions for you. How many of you would drive an hour and a half for a couple of veggie dogs from a street vender? How many of you would drive an hour + to get burritos? I have done the prior more times than I am proud of, and I did the latter for the first time yesterday. I'd say it was worth it. My burrito was delicious and huge and it put me in a food coma for a couple of hours. To make myself feel better about the trip I stopped by a deli/market and bought a couple of drinks.

I was very excited to see a new flavor of Argo, especially in Western New York, where there are no Whole Foods. Even though I had negative room in my stomach (I believe it was stretched as much as humanly possible from the gigantic burrito I had just ingested) it was over 95 degrees out and I was parched. I cracked this bottle open and took a sip. It definitely tasted different than I expected. I decided that I liked it though. A couple of minutes later I tried it again and decided I was mistaken the first time around. I sealed up the bottle for later consumption.

I think I've been wrong about hibiscus all these years. I had one drink with it that I really loved, and I'm now thinking that it was something else in that drink that grabbed on to my heart and shook the hell out of it. I don't dislike hibiscus, but every time I drink something with it in it now, I miss the spices from the original tea. Also, upon drinking this I am reminded that I am not a big sangria fan. I think it's the orange juice mixed in with the berries and apples that throws me off. If you mix that all together, it doesn't meet the delicious expectations that lived in my head (my fault not the drinks).

I've gone back to the drink, and I like it more than I did on the car ride home, because I've accepted that it's not what I thought it was going to be. In reality it tastes exactly how hibiscus and non-alcoholic sangria really taste (elderberries, apples, rosehip shells, strawberries, kiwi, raspberries and orange juice), and not how I wish they tasted.

This little guy has been staring me in the eye every time I open my cupboard for about a year now. It's like he's just been daring me to taste his awfulness. I don't even remember where he came from, Mike probably…€¦the bastard. I'd like to imagine that he was summoned forth like some sort of drink demon to ruin my day. You may say, “Hey it's just soda pop in a cute little bottle.” If you utter those words to me I will tell you that A. Cream soda should not be green. B. No soda should be green. It just means that added food coloring to make it wacky. C. Soda that comes in such a small container can be nothing but overly sweetened to the point where It will instantly erode your teeth and give you a terrible stomach ache.

I'm sick of looking at this. I'm sick of being afraid. Today I face my fears and try the dreaded “Chubby” (phrasing).

Oh my god it may be worse than expected. I opened up the bottle and it smelled like a nice pleasant cream soda. I thought to myself, “Hey maybe this actually won't be so bad. Maybe you've just been paranoid.” Then I took a sip and realized the demon had tricked me into taking a large gulp of his poison. It tastes solely like sweetener, with the faintest, faintest hint of vanilla. It has sugar and/or glucose fructose plus sucralose. You can taste it all battling out inside of your mouth, and no matter who the victor is it will not be your taste buds. Damn you Chubby!

“Expect the best. Accept the worst” When Blake Schwarzenbach wrote those lyrics I can only assume he wasn't talking about this soda, but it's fitting. In my world there are few sodas that sound better than a ginger drink that is sweetened with honey. I was thinking a honey flavored ginger beer, and I was hoping for one heck of a burn to it. As it turns out this isn't a ginger beer at all. In fact it doesn't taste like any soda that I've ever had before. That could be a good thing, except that it tastes exactly like honey cough drops; Ludens to be more specific. There is a ginger flavor, but the honey overpowers it and the combo, with a little coriander mixed in gives it a definite cough drop taste. Did you know that coriander is cilantro? That kind of blows my mind.

At first I didn't like this at all really. I was turned off thinking that I was drinking cough drops. I kept sipping on the bottle though, and now that I'm done, I have to say that I don't hate it. It's not something that I would want all of the time, but I think the more you drink it, the more acclimated you become and the more you enjoy it.

Our friends Dave and Gabby brought this back from a trip to Maine. Many thanks to them. After finishing this off, I'm very interested in trying Green Bee's other flavors.

A few years ago Snapple switched over to their “All Natural” line. I was completely stoked because it wasn't that long before then that I discovered that HFCS played a key role in causing the hell that went on in my stomach every night. I probably ingested far more bottles of the new teas than any one human should. It wasn't too much later that I started to see these cans pop up in gas stations. They were about half the price of the glass bottles, so I was understandably interested in them. I quickly realized that while the glass bottles were sweetened with cane sugar, the cans still used HFCS. I never understood why that was. I can't imagine that cane sugar is that much more expensive, since a bunch of other companies use it and keep their prices low. Perhaps some people (I'm looking at the folks from the UK) actually preferred the HFCS version and complained. I will never understand that.

This flavor is what companies want you to think that green tea tastes like. In reality it is reminiscent of green tea you would brew at home in only the most distant of ways. There is so much “sugar” in this that it tastes more sweet than anything. It tastes less like green tea than the Arizona tall boys do. If you're just in the market for an inexpensive sugary drink, perhaps you'll like this. If you're actually a fan of green tea I would probably skip over this one and grab one of the Snapple All Natural teas instead.

My dad won a cruise and he gave it to my ladyfriend and I. I'm guessing there is some catch with this thing, but so far all I've found is that you have to pay the tax, which is about $150 per person. Also, we have to find our way to a port, which not shockingly is going to be the most expensive part. Here I sit looking into it, daydreaming about tropical locations and I decided to pretend I was a kid and drink a Capri Sun. They market these big boys as being for adults, but we all know they are for kids. I'm sitting here sucking on a chilidog, err I mean a Maui Cooler. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be a tropical fruit punch, but the main fruits in it are apple, grape and orange (I guess you could consider that tropical if you really wanted to). The only other juice in it is pineapple, which I would expect in a Maui Cooler, but it's not very present in the flavor. It tastes like a juice box, because that is what it is. It just tastes like a higher quality generic fruit juice. No flavors really stick out. I'm okay with it. It's not my favorite, but I'm sure kids would be stoked to get these in their lunch boxes.

Now, to cruise, or not to cruise?

Two things: A. Why did they add sucralose to this when there are both sugar and crystalline fructose up near the top? B. Why does Fuze feel the need to add skim milk to their drinks?

In answer to A I've read that small amounts of sucralose and other zero calorie sweeteners help to enhance the natural flavors of a drink. I'm called bull on that. What it does enhance is the terrible artificial diet flavor. It's really unnecessary.

The reason for the second question isn't so clear. Perhaps the CEO just likes slightly milky drinks. It reminds me of when I was little and I would mix all the drinks in the fridge into a “power drink.” In early trials I would mix in some milk, then I realized that it was kind of gross, and I started to exclude it. It would sometimes curl when mixed with juice. I'm surprised that doesn't happen in here. Adding milk to a drink always gives it a slight melted ice cream flavor.

Let me sum up this drink for you. It would be a decent juice if there weren't sucralose in it. It's too bad that it has the terrible diet flavor to it. Why add that flavor when there is still 42g of sugar in the bottle? Oh and while we're at it, they should have left out the milk as it makes it weird and creamy and melted milkshake like.

Being a Hype Man is no easy job, but what can you do? I was born a Hype Man and I'll die a Hype Man. My mother tells me she met my father at a concert in the 80s. When I was younger she always led me to believe that my father was Grandmaster Flash, but years later it came out that while she was aiming for The Flash, she settled for Creole, the original Hype Man. Once I learned the true identity of my dad I became obsessed with becoming a Hype Man myself. I went so far as to pitch a reality show to VH1 that would star Flavor Flav, just so I could get a chance to meet him and ask him to mentor me. Needless to say, it worked. I spent years learning the tricks of the trade from “the clocked one.”

Finally after two decades of grueling dedication I am the prime Hype Man for a rapper. For legal reasons I can't divulge whom in fact I'm hyping until I make my stage debut, but you would be shocked and awed. We've run through the routine a million times, but I still get nervous. When I called Flav for some words of encouragement he hipped me to this drink. It really is shocking that for how he is obsessed with organic food, even though he put just about every drug into his system. He won't even drink a Red Bull now. He claims this drink gives Hype Men the energy they need in a healthier way and it tastes rather unique. I have to agree with him. It tastes like someone liquefied a whole mess of Double Bubble Gum and mixed it with some apple juice (and a little bit of that energy drink flavor). It may sound gross, but it's actually quite delicious. If this was the first energy drink I ever tried I would probably initially think it was gross, but being well versed in the flavor this is a great change of pace. It doesn't taste very chemical, and when it's ice cold it's a nice shock to your taste buds. Best of all is it doesn't have that chemical energy drinkness to it.

The crowd is getting restless. They need me. Me! I must go out and pump them up and add my little exclamations and interjections to my boss's raps. The world isn't ready for me with the little extra Hype I got from this energy drink.

I have one question; do you like creamsicles? If the answer is no, don't even bother with this soda, because that is what it is in a bubbly liquid form. If you do, then I urge you to get your hands on one of these. As I said it tastes like a creamsicle, but one that was made with actual oranges. It's probably the most natural tasting orange cream soda I've ever tasted, which is always a good thing.

An employee of Trader Joes once told me that all of their products were actually the ends of the batches of other company's products with a Trader Joes label on it. It makes sense. I want to know what company is the rightful heir to this cream fortune, because I'd guess we already reviewed it, and for some reason I think this version tastes better.

It's been awhile since I've had some grape juice. It falls under the same category as apple and orange juice in that they are around so much in stores (and occasionally the home) that you kind of forget about them and shrug them off. I'm sorry grape juice. I never should have let you fall out of my life, as you are delicious and in most instances you are way better than the juices I lump you in with. I think I mostly forgot about you, when pomegranate started showing up so much in things. To me in tastes like grape concentrate, and I guess subconsciously I was thinking that I was getting my fill of grapes. Now that I am sitting here, sipping on this juice, I know I was wrong. Grape juice, you blow pomegranate out of the water. You rely on flavor over intensity, the way things should be.

Welch's has done a great job here. It may not be over the top spectacular juice, but for a prepackaged version it's right on the money. It's strong and heavy, but it's not too intense like some juices can be. You don't get a little stomachache after drinking a glass. If you like purple grapes, then I think it's pretty safe to say that you will also really like this juice. After all it's just juice and vitamin C.

Sometimes we really just can't believe that we haven't reviewed some drinks. On a drink shopping spree the other day Mike and myself were completely dumbfounded to realize that we have not reviewed Arizona's green tea and sweet tea. It really seems like they should have been some of the first reviews we did for how often we see them/used to drink them (well the green tea).

I have to say I was probably better off not reviewing this. It's a fake version of sweet tea, meaning that it doesn't taste like sweet tea at all, but instead a over-sweetened tea. To me one of the main things in sweet tea is the cane sugar. It always has a slightly grainy quality to it, that lets you know it was made with real sugar. This was made with HFCS, so it wasn't grainy, but rather syrupy. It tastes like they took a regular sweetened black tea and doubled the HFCS. I couldn't make it through an entire can over a couple of hours. I don't recommend you to see if you can.

It has finally happened. I have found a coconut water drink that tastes exactly like I always thought coconut water would taste. To be clearer I mean it tastes like toasted coconut. To be even clearer it tastes like tanning oil. Now I've never used, nor tasted, tanning oil, as I believe it would make me spontaneously combust. I have smelled it and this tastes exactly like it smells. My ladyfriend also confirmed that it has the same taste. That is gross. Who wants to ingest anything like that? I honestly can't imagine a single person out there who would buy this, try it, be able to stomach it at all, and then go back and buy some more. Is this drink some sort of tax write off for Sobe? There has to be some strange back story here and I want to hear it!

I bought one of these while I was in Vegas. I had planned on drinking it on our last day, on a trip to Red Rock Canyon, but the temperature was so high that by the time I opened it the drink was almost hot. Bummer. I took a couple of sips and then dumped the rest, as we were flying out in a few hours and I had no way to cool it down. Cut to a couple of days ago when Mike and I found a bunch of Admiral teas in Buffalo. I was excited to try it while actually cold. Hansen's makes it, so my hopes were high. I did find it odd that they sweetened it with HFCS since their sodas all have cane sugar in them. Tall boys of iced tea are usually an exception for me for HFCS. There are a lot of them out there that have it that are still tasty. This wasn't bad, but it wasn't great like it could have been. The sweetener made it a little syrupy and the mango flavor tasted like some other product that is very specific, but I just can't put my finger on what it is. It's driving me crazy. I liked it, but a tall boy was too much of it for me (and I'm a drink glutton). If it had come in a 16oz can I think I would have enjoyed it more, but I was over it by the time I was getting to the bottom of this big fella.

The consistency of Vita Lina drinks is so strange. From the look of it sloshing around the bottle you wouldn't think that it flowed any different from a random drink. You don't really notice the strangeness until it's in your mouth. It's not syrupy. It's more like a watered down gel, but the viscosity of it is not something that is normal in drinks. I would like to say that I got over it and that it makes the drink fun, but this is my third bottle of their products and I still am hesitant to drink them. I know they taste great, but the consistency just throws me off. It's not gross. It's just weird.

As far as the flavor goes, this has a real pineapple flavor to it, without the harsh edge of the fruit. It tastes like of like it should be a pineapple “drink” and not juice. I don't mean that in a bad way though. Sometimes pineapple juice can be far too acidic to drink a lot of. Once you convince yourself that you're over the texture of this, you can drink this all day long.

Mike is always complaining about reviewing apple juice. You see unless it's the one out of a thousand times that it's something out of the ordinary and exception, or complete garbage, all apple juices pretty much taste the same. I find that strange because there are so many different types of apples out there with such an array of flavors, that I can't imagine every company uses the same type. I would expect each company to have their slightly unique version of apple juice, yet the all taste the same. Perhaps the problem is that they all mix the various apple types and the result is the standard. I guess I'm okay with that. There are types of apples that I'm not really a fan of, but I can never remember which is which. This way I don't have to worry about buying a juice that tastes like the “bad apples.”

Welch's you've done nothing new, or spectacular, here, but that's fine. You've perpetuated the standard and I enjoyed it. I just don't understand why you ship in your apple juice concentrate from China, Chile and Argentina when your company is based out of the North East which is ripe with apple orchards.